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Training
flights Saturday |
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04-Oct-14 |
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The sky was 8/8ths cloud
and looking like rain on the way from Brisbane to
Caboolture Airfield this morning.
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Mike Burgess (Trainee
Pilot) and I (Air Experience Instructor)
filled in time at the Hangar reading newspapers and
checking paperwork while wondering if we would
have a crew to enable us to fly and what the weather
would provide in terms of flying conditions
anyway.
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Then we got what we
needed, a Duty Instructor (Dave Donald) and a Tug
Pilot (Steve Chapman) ... however that was it for the day.
The usually very reliable Tim Williams (Duty Pilot)
didn't arrive ... we trust all is OK
Tim?
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With an Air Experience
passenger en-route from the Gold Coast and Mike eager
for "one or two" training flights, we headed
for RWY06 where we set up a flight line that consisted
of the white Ford sedan, three plastic chairs, a
flight sheet clip-board, the Duty Pilot briefcase, the Pawnee tug
(SPA) and a Blanik (GYK).
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A brief but delightful
diversion took place on the way past the Aero Club car
park where we stopped for a chat when we saw a youngster (Ethan) waving enthusiastically
to us. The result was Dave Donald showing a very timid Ethan the
controls of the Blanik and eventually coaxing him and
his mum to ride in the cockpit for the balance of the
tow out to RWY06. Young Ethan's grin and big thank you
suggests that he now has some huge news for show
and tell.
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The 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th
and 6th flights today saw Mike Burgess make the most
of having Dave Donald's undivided attention to
progress his training (including an impressive
demonstration by Dave of what to do when you
experience a cable break at 350 feet during take-off)
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It was a fairly quiet
flight line all morning, however we had an excellent
up-close view of this beautifully restored Fokker DR-I
Triplane as it came to the flight line to do a couple
of take-offs and landings ...
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The only other flight
today was me taking Darren Saines for a 47 minute Air Experience
Flight where we found surprisingly good
lift to the southwest of the airfield (in the area
that was the old Morayfield airstrip). We were able to
climb a couple of times right back to cloud base
which was at just under 3500
feet.
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Dave
Donald settles Darren into the front seat (with me in
the rear seat).
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Darren
ready to fly!
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Darren's
view from the front seat of the Blanik across
Beachmere and Deception Bay to Redcliff ...
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...
and to the sand hills at Tangalooma Resort on Moreton
Island in the distance
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When we headed back to
the Hangar to conclude the day's operations there was
another of our Club's "silent achievers" Rod
Elsworth busily working away unannounced on airworthiness matters
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Statistics:
GYK 6 flights for a total of 1 hour and 3 minutes.
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For the
first time in a very long time I was speechless today
when Kevin O'Brien caught up with me at the flight
line to present a certificate of appreciation for
service to the Caboolture Aero Club's airfield
maintenance team ...
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When
Steve Chapman (in the cockpit of SPA in the background of the
above pic) went to the bowser to fill SPA at the end of our
day's operations, the bowser was again inoperable. Rod
and I held a mini Committee meeting and. with no
guarantee that the bowser would be working again
before tomorrow morning, we asked Steve to
fly to Redcliffe for fuel to ensure that we would have at least
a near-full tank of fuel for tomorrow. Our best intentioned prudence however quickly turned into an unnecessary
extra expense as the bowser was operating again by the
time he got back!
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It is
worth noting that the skies cycled again after we
finished up (last launch was at 1:16 pm) and the cloud
cover of the morning was replaced by cumulus clouds
that looked very inviting. By around 1:30 pm I
was seriously regretting my 12:00 noon decision (when
we could feel cold air coming in from the east) to not
get the K6 out for an afternoon fly. I now can't
wait to see what tomorrow
brings!
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Regards,
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Kevin
Rodda
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fill-in AEI, Duty Pilot & Ground Crew!
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